Archives & Research

The military at Indiana University

From 1812 through World War II

IU’s involvement with the military dates back to the university’s early days as a frontier college. IU’s founding father David Maxwell was an Indiana Ranger and surgeon in the War of 1812 and many legislators, faculty, students, and members of the first Board of Trustees also had military ties.

IU was one of the first five colleges in the country to incorporate military science into the curriculum, in 1840. After the National Defense Act of 1916, ROTC was established on campus; the program was mandatory for all male freshmen and sophomores, including African Americans.

Concerned with mass enlistments during World War I, the Army developed the Student Army Training Corps (SATC), which provided enlisted men with two years of training in essential fields of study and effectively turned the campus into a military base, with residence halls and fraternities serving as barracks.

During World War II, campus again became a military training camp, with the Army, Army Air Corps, Navy, and Marine Corps sending troops for instruction in relevant fields such as foreign languages, dentistry, medicine, and nutrition.

After World War II, the influx of students taking advantage of the GI Bill transformed the campus with new building construction and increased research funding. With the Department of Defense, new programs in foreign languages and cultural studies were developed that continued through the Cold War and the Korean era.

The original prow, mainmast, and two gun mounts of the USS Indiana are on display outside of Memorial Stadium’s west entrance. The vessel served in the Pacific during World War II and was the last ship to be named for the Hoosier state.

From 1960 to the present

By the mid-1960s, social unrest regarding the military had come to campus and, after 48 years, ROTC was no longer required for men. In 1970, IU was one of ten institutions chosen by the military to allow women into ROTC.

The 1970s and 1980s were not a popular time for the military. Many who served in the First Gulf War, Operation Desert Shield/Storm, were forced to keep a low profile, and President Bill Clinton’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy regarding homosexuality was controversial. Many believed it made the ROTC program discriminatory. Efforts to block recruiters from campus were overruled by federal courts, who found that military recruiters have the right to access campuses that receive federal financial aid.

In 2006, IU Bloomington created the new position of director of Veterans Support Services and moved it to the Division of Student Affairs. IUPUI formed the Office for Veterans and Military Personnel under the Division of Enrollment Management. Every IU campus currently has resources for student veterans.

A place of honor

Clockwise from upper left: President Herman B Wells presides over the dedication of the Golden Book in its original location beside Alumni Hall in the Indiana Memorial Union, 1944; IU Air Force ROTC cadets view the Golden Book; dedication of the Memorial Room, 1961.

Colonel Richard Owen

This bronze bust of Civil War Colonel Richard Owen was commissioned by former Confederate prisoners of war in recognition of his kindness and courtesy as commandant of Camp Morton in Indianapolis. Owen taught natural history for 15 years on the Bloomington campus, where Owen Hall bears his name. The bust is located outside of the Memorial Room and was created by sculptor Belle Kinney, the daughter of a Confederate soldier.

Honoring IU’s Lost Daughters

Edna H. Henry (circa 1921), director of social services for Long Hospital, laid the groundwork for establishing Re-Aides physical therapy programs at 29 U.S. Army hospitals.

Thirty IU women who served in various capacities during World War I but were not included in the original Golden Book eventually qualified as veterans, years after the war was over. Inconsistencies in record keeping were discovered during research in recent years, and on Veterans Day 2011, the oversight was corrected when the names of these, the “Lost Daughters of Indiana University,” were ceremoniously added.

Of these these brave women, 15 were in the Army Nurse Corps, seven were in the Naval Reserve, and seven served with the Army as physical therapy Re-Aides. They include Emma Belle Stevenson, head nurse at Long Hospital of the IU School of Medicine; Flora Ruth, the only IU woman who died in service during WWI; and Lettie Wadsworth, who served in France, earning her degree after the war. Others served in various ways: Hilda Springer served in Naval Intelligence; Sisters Dorrit and Lorena Ivy Dengler were “Soldiers of the Soil” in the Women’s Land Army (Dorrit went on to Army Nurse Training and Lorena enlisted in the Naval Reserve, and then in the Army as a physical therapy Re-Aide); Belva Cuzzoirt established the Re-Aide program at the Army’s largest hospital, Fort Sheridan; and Georgia Finley served as a dietician on the front lines in France.

Questions?

If you have questions about the Golden Book, email us at goldbook@iu.edu.